We All Face the Scarcity of Time. So What Does Faithful Stewardship of Time Look Like?

Throughout my traveling and teaching, I often hear similar questions and challenges.

In the past month, both a pastor at a recent luncheon and a student in my undergraduate economics course challenged one of the most fundamental principles of economics, and their questions are causing me to think.

We All Face Scarcity

In underdeveloped and developing countries, scarcity is the trek to the next village to get water.

It is the hunger that pinches children’s stomachs when corrupt institutions demand a family’s grocery pennies as bribes.

It is a cycle that traps so many.

Scarcity takes a different form in developed countries. When food and water and shelter are present, the urgency of meeting physical needs gives way to the constraint of time.

This remarkable statement was made recently by one of my students:

I don’t have any wants. All of my needs are taken care of. Look at those who are living in reduced circumstances in places like Bangladesh; even they are content.

Setting aside our inability to know the hearts of those in other circumstances, I think many of us can resonate with the heart behind this statement.

In modern America and other first world countries, we shrug off the idea that we experience scarcity. We feel guilty if we say that we still want things when all of our material needs have been met.

We have a biblical command to be content, to not make material goods our idols, and to be sober-minded about our pursuits. 1 Peter 1:13 warns us:

Therefore, preparing your minds for action,and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

This is a heart matter and something we must prayerfully work through on a daily basis.

It’s not that material goods are bad. They are, in fact, good. As discussed in last week’s post about capital and flourishing in the Garden of Eden, goods like the cell phone help us stay connected, make our lives better, and more importantly, they economize on our time.

It’s making the cell phone or the new car or the next house our idol which causes recklessness.

The Scarcity of Time

The cultural mandate God gave us in the Garden of Eden still applies even in a now broken world. The pain experienced when a need is not met is a more obvious manifestation of scarcity, but it is not the only legitimate form of scarcity.

Time is the greatest equalizer. Everyone is equally responsible for this resource. Once physical needs are met, we still feel the pinch of the wants and needs that cannot be met because we do not have enough time.

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists…. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

We were created to desire God and fulfill his call for us. In the Garden of Eden, we had infinite time. We were commanded to subdue and multiply the earth, and we had all the time in the world to do those things.

Now, we don’t have that time. We are brought up short before we can finish the work God created us to do; death interrupts us before we can complete our tasks. We are called to faithful stewardship of that time, as we are given only so much.

Faithful Stewardship of Our Time

Fortunately, there is grace even in scarcity. We are not defined by our wealth or by being the most productive human to walk the earth.

We are defined by the nature of our Creator and Savior, and only through his work on the cross can we be freed from the effects of scarcity.

Our net worth is found in doing what we’re called to do and being content, not simply with the meeting of physical needs, but with the outcomes we’ve been given.

We should not feel guilt if we do not experience the same pinch of hunger or the same lack of shelter felt by other people, but we should know that our blessings give us great responsibility to others.

We should rejoice that we experience desires that draw us closer to God and seek to bring those around us to the same level of flourishing with which we are blessed.

We should seek to be the best stewards of the time we have been given, and entrust the results of our efforts to God.

Dr. Anne Bradley

Anne Bradley, Ph.D. is Vice President of Economic Initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics and the George and Sally Mayer fellow for Economic Education and Academic Director at The Fund for American Studies. She served as co-editor and contributing author to IFWE’s Counting the Cost: Christian Perspectives on Capitalism (Abilene Christian University Press) and For the Least of These: A Biblical Answer to Poverty (Zondervan). Anne received her Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University. She is a visiting professor at Georgetown University and has previously taught at George Mason University and at Charles University in Prague.